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AMD announced its first RDNA 2 (Radeon RX 6000 series) gaming GPUs during a live stream (24m42s) on October 28.
AMD originally planned for RDNA 2 to have 50% more performance per Watt than GPUs using the RDNA 1 microarchitecture. Now, AMD is claiming 54% more performance per Watt for the RX 6800 XT and RX 6800, and 65% more performance per Watt for the RX 6900 XT. Part of the efficiency gain is due to the use of "Infinity Cache", similar to the L3 cache found in Ryzen CPUs. This allowed AMD to use a 256-bit memory bus with 2.17x the effective memory bandwidth of a 384-bit bus, while using slightly less power.
The RX 6900 XT ($1000) has performance comparable to Nvidia's RTX 3090, with a total board power (TBP) of 300 Watts. The RX 6800 XT ($650) is comparable to Nvidia's RTX 3080, also with a 300 Watt TBP. The RX 6800 ($580) is around 18% faster than Nvidia's RTX 2080 Ti, with a 250 Watt TBP. All three of the GPUs have 16 GB of GDDR6 VRAM and 128 MB of "Infinity Cache".
The 6800 XT and 6800 will be available starting on November 18, while the 6900 XT will be available on December 8.
Also at Tom's Hardware, Phoronix, Ars Technica, and Guru3D.
Previously: Nvidia Announces RTX 30-Series "Ampere" GPUs
AMD Announces Zen 3 CPUs
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Thursday October 29 2020, @02:01AM (3 children)
I'm a bit out of touch, but When was the last time we could get a good video card for under $300? And what does that price translate to in today's dollars?
I know far too often I find myself thing "$X is way too much for Y, what happened? And then I realize 10 to 20 years of inflation happened, and my money is worth only a fraction of what it used to be.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jasassin on Thursday October 29 2020, @02:39AM (1 child)
I'm totally with you on the out of touch thing. Back in the day it was a Voodoo 2 for $320. It blew the hell out of a Voodoo 1 and was the first, and only, card I spent $300 on. I remember installing it and loading up Quake and almost pissing my pants.
Anecdotally since then I've bought an Asus EAH Radeon 3450 (new at the time) for $45 and recently (maybe around April or May) after using an Nvidia 9800 GT a friend gave me about 8 years ago I bought an Nvidia GTX 1650 Super. It was $165, but the main reason I bought that was because I got $50 off for signing up for an Amazon store card and another $60 off for signing up for an Amazon Prime Visa card and free shipping for signing up for a free month of Amazon Prime. So I got it for a little over $60.
I closed the store account about two weeks after purchase and canceled Amazon Prime two days before the 30 day trial. I kept the Visa card to use with my friends Costco gas card because the pumps don't take Discover. (Yes I'm frugal.)
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0x663EB663D1E7F223
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday October 29 2020, @03:03AM
Oh, yeah, the good old Voodoo2 - that was the first "real" 3D card I bought, after getting burned by one of the competing "3D decelerators" in the first generation. Cost over $600 in today's dollars.
I've had a few second-hand upgrades since then, but I'm not sure when the last time I bought a new video card was... well before Bitcoin, and GPU-based superccomputing hadn't yet caught on enough to affect prices. I don't think the Wii had even come out yet. And even then $300 only got you a solid mid-range card. I don't even remember what I bought anymore, but I think it cost around $200, and that was around the time I decided I was no longer interested in chasing high-performance PC gaming. I should probably buy something new soon - at the very least something that supports a 4K desktop natively rather than requiring a 30Hz driver hack with a decent chance of being reverted any time Windows does a major update.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 29 2020, @03:13AM
GPU is cheap as hell, just not the newest best. Navi 10 was less than 300 when it was brand new though, and that will still play any game you throw at it on max settings.